Kiefer Sutherland’s back as Jack Bauer; Seth MacFarlane has his first live-action comedy; and Andy Samberg and Greg Kinnear are joining the line-up as Fox looks to dig its way out this season’s 20 percent ratings decline.

In what Fox suits claim is the network’s largest new programming investment ever, it has picked up 11 new shows, as well as two so-called “event series” — the new Hollywood-speak for “miniseries.” This includes Sutherland’s return as Jack Bauer in a shortened “24,” which will likely debut in the May 2014 sweep and run into the summer.Also announced: an event series from M. Night Shyamalan called “Wayward Pines.”

Flailing singing competitions “The X Factor” and “American Idol” will again get three-hour chunk of the network’s 15-hour primetime — “X” in the fall, “Idol” in the spring. Reilly confirmed that the “Idol” judge panel will be shrunk to three; he declined to discuss whether Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban are returning, other than to say they would be welcome. Longtime judge Randy Jackson has already said he’s out, and Carey’s husband, Nick Cannon, has given interviews that seem to suggest she’s thinking along the same lines.

On a conference call with reporters Monday morning, Fox entertainment chairman Kevin Reilly insisted the biggest problem with “Idol” this season was not the judge caterwauling, but the format changes.

About the return of “24”(officially titled “24: Live Another Day”) Reilly confessed that when the show produced 24 episodes, each representing one hour in a really bad day for Jack Bauer, the writers actually only had about 12 good hours in which big events occurred — and viewers sat through 12 more hours of “connective tissue.” Busting the show down to a 12-episode cycle will be “liberating for us,” he said, and will now skip the boring hours.

“I couldn’t be more excited...Jack is back!” Reilly gushed on the phone call.

Fox has aggressively been programming summer with reality TV for years, and this upcoming “24: Live Another Day” launch marks a major investment in programming scripted fare year round — a strategy the the network has been paying lip service to for years.

However, Reilly added, “24” (along with the “Wayward Pines” event series) will not necessarily be back every season — although there could be sequels.

Fox is the second broadcast network to unveil its plans for next season at Broadcast Upfront Week in Manhattan; Sunday afternoon, NBC announced its new lineup, including a whopping 17 new shows.

Fox’s new schedule is always a brain tease, including as it does, one version for pre-post-season-baseball, and another for post-post-season baseball. So have some more coffee and pay close attention. Here goes:

“Bones” is back to kick things off on Monday nights, followed by new “Sleepy Hollow” (which Reilly called a “wildly inventive show”), in which the coward made famous by Washington Irving two centuries ago, returns — only re-envisioned by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, of “Star Trek,” “Transformers,” and “Fringe” fame. Ichabod is now a hero, resurrected two and a half centuries later to find the world on the brink of destruction. Rather than roll over in his grave, like you’d think, he instead rises to the occasion, and teams with a contemporary cop to unravel a mystery that dates back to the founding fathers, which is before even his time.

In the late fall (Fox-speak for post-baseball) “Almost Human” will take “Bones’s” timeslot, and “Bones” moves to Friday nights at 8. After that swap happens, serial-killer drama “The Following” returns “midseason” (early next calendar year) at 9, replacing “Sleepy Hollow.”

Still with me?

“Almost Human,” from JJ Abrams and JH Wyman (“Fringe”) is set 35 years in the future and follows a part-machine cop teamed with a part-human robot — the explanation of which, in the first-episode no doubt, you will not want to miss. On the call with reporters, Reilly claimed the show “looks like a movie.”

Fox will take another whack at creating a four-comedy block on Tuesdays. In the fall, that kicks with MacFarlane’s first live-action, multi-camera comedy, “Dads,” and a single-cam comedy called “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” starring Samberg and Andre Braugher as hotshot detective and his superior, respectively.

“Dads” stars Seth Green and Giovanni Ribisi as successful gaming entrepreneurs whose pain-in-the-neck dads, Martin Mull and Peter Riegert, move in — because they were too cheap to rent their dads an apartment?

These two guy-coms are the new lead-in for returning “New Girl” and “The Mindy Project.”

Oh, and “New Girl” will get the coveted post-Super Bowl timeslot next season.

Wednesday, “The X Factor” is back in the fall; creator Simon Cowell has survived, as has Demi Lovato and host Mario Lopez.

In January “American Idol” is back and who will survive is anyone’s guess — Ryan Seacrest, and maybe one or two others.

Thursday, “The X Factor” results show is back, followed by “Glee.” After “X wraps its run, the “American Idol” results show takes over, followed by new drama “Rake.” It stars Greg Kinnear as a brilliant, charming, chaotic, self-destructive criminal defense attorney — think “House” with courtrooms.

The latest addition to Gordon Ramsay’s TV empire, “Junior Masterchef” stars Friday nights in the fall, followed by “Sleepy Hollow” repeats — that’s to increase viewer sampling on that new drama.

Later in the season, post-baseball, “Bones” moves to Fridays, followed by two comedies: returning “Raising Hope,” and a new single-camera comedy, “Enlisted.” Geoff Stultz stars as older brother returning home to reconnect with his two brothers on a small Florida Army base, where he’s going to lead a group of misfits, because if he was leading a group of well-trained professionals it would be a drama, and star Kiefer Sutherland.

Saturday is sports night on Fox, followed by HD animation in late night.

And Sunday nights starts with the tail end of a football game at 7 p.m., post-game at 7:30, and the return of Fox’s animation lineup: “The Simpsons,” “Bob’s Burgers,” “Family Guy” and “American Dads.”

“We’re making the biggest investment in original programming in our history,” Fox’s programming chief Kevin Reilly said in Monday’s announcement, explaining that the network was doing so“ to ensure that Fox continues to engage viewers and move the culture more than any other entertainment brand.” Apparently he didn’t see this season’s ratings, or hear about the “Walking Dead” numbers, or…

Fox has a mess of new bench-warmers for the coming season. Ryan Lopez stars with Terry O’Quinn in “Gang Related” about members of Los Angeles’ Gang Task Force.

Three new comedies, “Surviving Jack,” “Us & Them” and “Murder Police,” will debut some time during the season. “Surviving Jack” stars Chris Meloni as, Fox explains, a man becoming a dad, as his son becomes a man, in a time before “coming of age” was something you could Google.

“Us & Them” stars Jason Ritter and Alexis Bledel as a young couple surrounded by a circus of messed up friends and family, yada, yada, yada.

“Murder Police” is animated, it was created by “rising writer/animator/performer” Jason Ruiz, Fox gushed. It’s about a dedicated, but inept detective — because if he was competent it would be a drama and would star Kiefer Sutherland — and his colleagues in a “twisted city precinct.”

And, last, but not least, Fox announced its new “event series,” “Wayward Pines,” from Shyamalan, based on the best-selling novel, “Pines,” from Blake Crouch. This thriller is about a Secret Service agent, played by Matt Dillon, who shows up in the bucolic town of Wayward Pines, ID to find two missing federal agents, only things get ugly and Dillon may not get out alive.

View Photo Gallery: Fox, NBC, CBS and the CW announced the new television shows coming to these networks this fall last week. Michael J. Fox, Blair Underwood, Sean Hayes and Andy Samberg return to the small screen, while J.J. Abrams and Bill Lawrence put their creative powers behind two new shows.